Atlantic Beach celebrates nation's new chapter

Charlene Taylor has lived in the Black Pearl, as Atlantic Beach is historically known, for 38 years - including during segregation, which meant walking to school as white kids were bused and using separate water fountains and bathrooms.

So watching Barack Obama take the oath of office as the 44th president of the U.S. brought her chills.

"We've never seen anybody get this close to the White House," Taylor said at Tuesday's inauguration party at the Atlantic Beach Community Center. "If he wants to lay down in the Lincoln bedroom, he can lay down in the Lincoln bedroom. If his kids want to roll around on the floor, they can roll around on the floor. It gives me chills just thinking about it."

On the ground developed in the 1930s by Conway entrepreneur George Tyson so blacks - particularly black maids who worked for wealthy white families - would have a beach, about 30 people joined in song and listened to local black speakers talk about the significance of Obama's inauguration.

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